Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 182
Scan 182
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
13 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 156. See the scan on archive.org.
1it for a gift to the New England Conservatory of Music. The organ was taken down by the Geo. S. Hutchings Company and stored in a shed back of the Conservatory, which was not then ready for it, until Edward F. Searles of Methuen, Massachusetts, purchased it for $1,500 at an auction held in 1897 to settle the Grover Estate.51 Mr. Searles had obtained control of the James E. Treat Company and reorganized it as the Methuen Organ Company. This company rebuilt the organ with new chests, reservoirs, and mechanism, but retained the pipes almost as made, except that they were reset to lower the pitch to International and two new pipes were added to each stop to extend the compass to sixty-one note keyboards.51
3The rebuilt organ was set up in "Serlo Hall," built for the purpose in Methuen, and the reopening recital, December 9, 1909, was given by Everett E. Truette. After Mr. Searles died the organ was purchased in 1931 by Ernest M. Skinner, who has made some further changes in it.
5The Walcker firm also built a fine 3 manual organ for the "First Church" Boston, and a lesser instrument for Park Church, Norwich, Connecticut.
7What the Boston Music Hall organ did for the development of the modern American pipe organ may be judged from the following. Previous pipe organs of American make had an old English "keyboard hole," sliding doors, no "terraces" for draw knobs, no positive string tones or true "vox humana," no 30 note CCC pedal compass, no notes below Tenor "F" or "G" on the Swell, no 32 ft. stops till within close upon a hundred years, when a single set of stopped wood basses 8 ft. pitch were inserted, usually entitled "Swell Bass," no intermanual pistons, etc., no complete bass for all Swell stops, no balanced swell pedal, no crescendo pedal; and they generally had an 18 or 25 note GGG Pedal keyboard with only 1 or 2 stops, 10 2/3 ft. at the lowest note belonging to it, and very light wind power (2 1/2-3"); noisy action; and poor metal pipes, usually not over 1/3 tin or less.
9The need for pneumatic action in large organs is shown by the previous slow response to the organist's efforts which obliged him to play by rule and shut his ears to the result. In some organs the larger bass pipes gave out the tone so slowly that their use was entirely laid aside and they were silent for years.52 Furthermore a
1151 Covell, William King. The Boston Music Hall Organ p. 5.
1252 See Dwight's Journal of Music, Vol. 26, October 13, 1866 p. 323, "New Organ in Trinity Church, New Haven, Conn."
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